Reservoirs Up, Water Use Down, Drought On

While the 2014 drought continues, MMWD is in far better condition than earlier this year, thanks to recent rains and reduced water consumption. This means mandatory water use reductions will not be required this year. However, the district’s request for a 25% voluntary reduction in water use is still in effect.

Rainfall in both February and March significantly improved MMWD’s reservoir levels and water consumption has been lower this year than last for each of the last eight weeks.

Here are the current water statistics:

Reservoir Levels: As of March 26, reservoir storage is 61,782 acre-feet,* or 78% of capacity. The average for this date is 73,083 acre-feet, or 92% of capacity. Total capacity is 79,566 acre-feet.

Rainfall: Rainfall this fiscal year to date (July 1-March 26) is 27.06 inches. Average for the same period is 45.48 inches.

Water Use: Water use for the week of March 17-23 averaged 18.2 million gallons per day, compared to 20.4 million gallons per day for the same week last year.

Creek Releases: During the month of February 2014 MMWD released 367 million gallons, or a total of 1,126 acre-feet, into Lagunitas and Walker creeks in west Marin. We release water throughout the year to maintain adequate flows for the fishery per our agreements with the State of California.

Great question! Consumption for the week was roughly the same as the amount of water going into the reservoirs, so the net result was almost no change. That consumption includes water use by district customers as well as water releases into Lagunitas and Walker creeks in West Marin for fish. The good news is that, thanks to the recent rainfall and runoff, reservoir levels are continuing to creep upward. As of today we are at almost 80% of capacity. We are working on a plan to update the Water Watch on our website daily instead of weekly (and hope to make the switch soon).